General Wellness (16)

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The work of the HeartMath® Institute has arguably had its greatest impact showing people that by focusing on their own feelings of love and care, they can entrain their heart rhythms to enter a more coherent, healthy, psychologically resilient state. And they can influence other hearts in the vicinity as well.

What's fun is, they do this with high-end monitors and sophisticated telemetry, so it's a lot harder for naysayers to simply call them fruit loops and dismiss their findings.

This is a wonderful teaching story about impatience and stepping back to see the larger perspective.

Even the most enlightened among us can get into a pressured, goal-directed state of mind and display what psychologists call "hurry sickness". A typical symptom of hurry sickness is when we press the button of an elevator multiple times – yep, like, that's really going to make a difference....:/

This story was shared by Sarah Owen Bigler on Facebook, who was in a Target with her two kids, waiting in the checkout line. She had a lot to get done, and she was supremely annoyed by an old woman ahead of her, who was paying for each item separately – with change, no less.

"Centenarians are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population (increasing at the rate of 75,000 people per year)," she said. She attributes many aspects of seniors' healthy lifestyles to attitude. "Age is just a number, and agelessness means not buying into the idea that a number determines everything from your state of health to your attractiveness to your value."

We got this note and video clip from a friend a few years ago, and it's really a treat, so we're showing it again. You'll find in the lounges of various Mayo Buildings, there is often a piano, and sometimes people stop to play. This is an enchanting video of two older folks playing a duet in the Gonda Building, to an impromptu audience of delighted and appreciative folks. Click here.

And for a double dose of 'feel-good' medicine, this is the story that generated the video.

And here they are on a return visit, reprising their by now iconic musical number. By this time, he's 91 and she's 85 years old, and they've got a way bigger audience. Awesome.

Researchers from Duke University, Loma Linda University, the University of Maryland, University College in London and King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia examined the relationships between religiosity, depressive symptoms, and positive emotions in people with major depression and chronic illness.

Investigators recruited 129 people who were at least somewhat religious/spiritual into a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of religious vs. secular cognitive behavioral therapy. They used standard measures to assess at baseline the relationships between religious involvement and depressive symptoms, purpose in life, optimism, generosity, and gratefulness using standard measures.

I just stumbled on this story written by a good friend of mine, Anne Simpkinson, in a blog called Wellness Warrior. She talks about practicing "Mouth Yoga" or deliberate smiling as a proactive choice for shifting her mood.

Now, keep in mind as you read this, there is nothing fake or phony or saccharine about my friend Anne. She's a very authentic sort of person. So this is more like acting "as if" until it's not acting any more. ...Kind of like doing affirmations – affirmations of the face (☺).

Of course, when you practice this, just as Anne describes, there's the added bonus of getting smiles back from others you come across, who are responding to your smile in the first place, and that reinforces the whole set-up, and really makes you smile.

Check it out. Thich Nhat Hanh made this practice popular here and abroad. It's good advice.

Researchers from the University of Alicante in Alicante, Spain, performed a randomized controlled study to evaluate the impact of the Relaxation Response on enhancing the psychological well-being and modulating the immune responses of elderly people living in a residential facility when compared to a waitlist control group.

The study included a 2-week intervention period and a 3-month follow-up period. The main outcome variables were psychological well-being and quality of life, biomedical variables, and immune changes from the pre-treatment to post-treatment and follow-up periods.

This delightful video clip of an adorable toddler discovering rain for the first time has been making its way around the internet. The reasons for its popularity will immediately become obvious. Give yourself a treat and check it out – for the first, second or yes, even the dozenth time.

A friend sent this wonderful video of a flash mob in Sabadell, Spain. As the description says, this is a flash mob that is beautiful and high-minded and entirely, entirely earnest. The performance -- an iterative take on Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," convened in Sabadell, Spain -- takes the original purpose of the flash mob and reverses it: Instead of assembly > content, here's it's the content that matters much more than the congregation. The gathering's subject has a predicate, which is to create -- and to share -- art. Enjoy!